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■COCO'S ITINERARY 
BATTLE of IhcMARNE 
BATTLE of the AISNE 



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WAR THE CREATOR 



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WAftTTHE 
CREATOR 

BY- GBLETT 
BURGESS-*- 




New York B. W. HUEBSCH 1916 



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:x. 



Copyright, 1915, by P. F. Collier & Son, Inc. 
Copyright, 1916, by B. W. Huebsch 



War the Creator was first printed in 
Collier's. Acknowledgment is made to that 
weekly for permission to publish the story 
in volume form. 




AUG 10 1916 



PRINTED IN U. S. A. 



5CI.A438017 



WAR THE CREATOR 



T3E CAUSE he was my friend, because he 
■■^ was so lovable, because he suffered 
much, I want to try to tell the story of a boy 
who, in two months, became a man. My 
hero is Georges Cucurou, the son of a shoe- 
maker of Toulouse. I happened to see him 
first just before the war began, and not again 
until after he had been wounded; and the 
change in him was then so great that I could 
not rest until I had learned how it had been 
brought about. Georges is but one of the 
thousands who have gone into that furnace 
of patriotism; in France such experiences as 
his are commonplace now, but when I heard 

[5] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



his story I got a glimpse of war in a new 
aspect. Before, I had thought of it only as 
stupid, destructive, dire ; now, in his illumined 
face, I saw the work of War the Creator. 

His narrative is concerned with only the 
first six weeks of the fighting, and mostly with 
that terrible retreat from Belgium, so bitter 
in its disappointments, so trying to the flam- 
boyant courage of the French. Hardly 
had they rallied along the Marne and 
begun to pursue the enemy when Georges 
was wounded and invalided home. It was 
there in the hospital that I got his history; 
and from those talks, and his notebook, and 
his letters to his aunt, I have reconstructed 
the trials and emotions of this lad of twenty. 

II 

Georges, having commenced his regular 
three years' military service in October, 19 13, 
[6] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



got leave to visit his aunt who was keeping 
a pension in Paris. 

How shy and confused he was when I 
came down to the dining-room that day and 
surprised him while he was examining his too- 
faint mustache with great seriousness before 
the mirror! Charming, I thought him, in- 
stantly; a clean, jolly sort of boy, quite too 
young for that ridiculous soldier's uniform. 

His aunt introduced him (with her arm 
about his shoulder and a tweak of his ear) by 
his nickname, " Coco " ; and, after he got 
used to my being a foreigner, he began to 
talk, using his big brown eyes and his free, 
expressive hands quite as much as his tongue. 
Knowing a little of the Midi, I attempted an 
imitation of the patois. Coco threw back 
his head and laughed with abandon. That 
broke the ice, and we became great friends. 

He was so curious about everything 
American that I took him up to my salon to 

[7] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



see my typewriter ; also my neckties and fancy 
socks. 

"But what's this?" asked Coco, reading 
with his funny French pronunciation, " A- 
mer-i-cain Pencil Compagnie." It was a 
novelty, a " perpetual " pencil of the self- 
sharpening sort, with a magazine filled with 
little points like cartridges. When I gave it 
to him, it pleased Coco immensely. 

"Just like a rifle! " he exclaimed, as he 
amused himself by pressing the end and eject- 
ing the bits of lead. He went through the 
manual of arms with it, laughing; he did a 
mock bayonet thrust or two, and then aimed 
it at me in fun, like a child. "Pan!" he 
cried; " that's the way we shoot Germans! " 
The contrast of his red pantaloons and blue 
coat with the round, innocent face and lips 
parted like a girl's was absurd. Why, he 
was more like those doll soldiers you see at 
toyshops with curly hair! With his fresh 

[8] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



pink cheeks and big brown eyes he seemed no 
more than sixteen years old. 

In the evening we all went out on the 
crowded Boulevard, where, it being a fete 
day, they were dancing in front of the open- 
air band stands. It was a long time before 
I ceased to think of Coco as jolly, flushed, 
exuberant, dancing the Tango on the corner 
by the Sorbonne with his pretty young aunt, 
as excited and happy as only a lad can be 
who has come up from a provincial town to 
see the metropolis for the first time on a holi- 
day. 

That was on the 14th of July of 1914. 
Next day he went back to his caserne at Mon- 
tauban. 

In two weeks war was declared ! 

Coco, our own blithe Coco, would have 
to go to the front — oh, his aunt's white face 
that day ! — and Coco would be in the first 
line ! It seemed like some hideous mistake. 

[9] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



But already Coco, pink-cheeked, laughing, 
shy, his mother's only boy, was well on his 
way toward the German shells and machine 
guns! 

Ill 

The French do nothing without a flavor- 
ing of sentiment. Rhetoric flowers in the 
official proclamations; it makes one laugh 
even to read the textbooks for soldiers, 
they are so strewn with fine, resounding 
phrases; and so, of course, it was quite im- 
possible for Coco's regiment to get away 
without one of those stirring, gesticulative 
speeches by the colonel. 

It was at the Toulouse railway station — 
parents in tears. The girls gazed admir- 
ingly. Gossipy veterans of '70, seeing them- 
selves reincarnated in these fresh young sol- 
diers, patronized them egregiously with ad- 
vice. Coco and the other lads listened, but 

[10] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



did not hear; they were smiling at the girls 
sticking bouquets in their rifle barrels. 

" Look back for the last time at your 
homes and your loved ones," cried the col- 
onel, with all his badges on his breast, " and 
shed the tear without which our high sacrifice 
would not have its price. Lift up your 
hearts, and so forth, and so forth, my chil- 
dren — en avant! " 

Children indeed they were, overflowing 
with the emotion of the south, these soldiers, 
and our Coco, with a gulp in his throat, 
seemed even more young than most. The 
war ! How often had he heard it predicted 
for that year, or the next, or the next — the 
inevitable war that was to give France her 
long-hoped-for revenge. Now, it was actu- 
ally here! No more blank cartridges, no 
more sham battles — War! 

But Coco's tears soon dried. They were 
a merry lot, those twenty-year-old " piou- 



WAR THE CREATOR 



pious," even on that tiresome trip to the 
front. The youngsters had the worst of it 
during the mobilization. They sat all that 
journey on rough-board temporary benches 
in the luggage vans. Starting and stopping, 
side-tracking and backing — munching the 
emergency rations (hard tack and canned 
beef), for mother's cheese and chocolate 
didn't last long — waving and yelling to 
the patriotic spectators along the line, it 
took them almost three days to reach Cha- 
lons. 

At the military camp two more days were 
spent in concentration, exercises, and inspec- 
tion. The last orders were received. 
Then, at five o'clock in the morning of the 
sixth of August, the column started for the 
frontier. 

Coco was a private in the Tenth Company 
of the Twentieth Regiment of Infantry. 
His army corps, the Seventeenth, formed the 

[12] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



left wing of the Fourth Army. On their 
left, paralleling their march, was, first, Gen- 
eral Ruffey's cavalry division, and beyond 
that the Fifth Army, under General Lan- 
rezac. On the extreme left wing of the ad- 
vance were the British. Meanwhile, march- 
ing on Lorraine and Alsace, were the Sixth 
and Seventh Armies. With all these columns 
hurrying to the front, filling all the roads, 
railway transportation was impossible. It 
was a march of some seventy miles to the 
frontier. 

So, through the lovely forest of Argonne, 
the boys set out, singing and joking as they 
strode along. It was pleasant enough at 
first, a romantic adventure; but with his 
heavy rifle, his heavy cartridge belt and bay- 
onet, and his musette full of food slung over 
his shoulder, it was not long before poor Coco 
began to get weary. On his back, with his 
knapsack, and his rolled overcoat and his tin 

1 13] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



bidon and tin gamelle, with the intrenching 
tool and his share of the company's baggage, 
he carried fully sixty pounds. They marched 
on one side of the road. Along the other 
side automobiles whirled incessantly back and 
forth, motor busses filled with provisions 
rumbled along, dispatch bearers on motor- 
cycles, officers on horseback — raising dust 
a-plenty. 

Coco's chum — his " copain " — was 
Francois Foulot, the son of a cabinetmaker 
in Toulouse, a big, athletic, kind-hearted 
chap with a bushy black pompadour. Coco 
had told me about him in Paris. The two 
boys were members of a little musical and 
dramatic club in Toulouse, and had been 
friends from childhood. You should hear 
Coco tell how, on that long march, Francois 
took care of him, carrying his rifle when 
Coco was tired, carrying even Coco's knap- 
sack for him, helping him grease his boots at 



WAR THE CREATOR 



night when Coco's feet began to blister. 
Frangois was like a big brother. 

At the nightly bivouacs along the road the 
two boys always slept side by side; that is, 
when they slept at all. The excitement (and 
the hard ground) for the first few nights kept 
them wide awake, in spite of their fatigue. 

" Mon Dieu, how will this all end? " they 
asked each other. Coco didn't know, Fran- 
gois didn't know ; but neither thought the war 
could possibly last more than a few months. 



IV 

Yet there was a terrible earnestness about 
it all that sobered them. There was some- 
thing still more terribly earnest ahead! 
Every automobile that whizzed past them, 
coming in hot haste from the front, an- 
nounced it. Every galloping supply wagon, 
every crouching motorcyclist in uniform 

[iS] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



flashing by told the same frantic story: 
"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! The Ger- 
mans are almost here! France is in dan- 
ger!" 

On those first nights, when Coco's turn 
came to stand on sentry duty by the lonely 
corner of a wood, his eyes strained into the 
darkness, listening for every sound, the sight 
of a bush waving in the wind often brought 
his gun to his shoulder with a quick, excited 
"Halte-la!" 

For Coco, sensitive, earnest, and not a lit- 
tle fearful, was in a high nervous tension. 
Already the Germans were fighting in Bel- 
gium — the killing had commenced. From 
one of the villages they passed the boy wrote 
a brave little letter to his mother on a post 
card: "If anything should happen . . . 
well, one knows one's duty, and God will do 
the rest. Lovingly, Coco." 

On, on, through the hilly forests of Ar- 
[16] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



gonne they marched, making about twenty- 
five miles a day. And on that dusty march 
food was scarce. Poor Coco's feet, despite 
the tallow in his socks, were too sore for him 
to chase chickens, but Francois succeeded in 
capturing seven. Not much, however, when 
their necks were wrung, for a company of 
250 men. Even the bread began to run out. 
But on they went, singing by day and shiver- 
ing by night — on, on toward Belgium. 
Coco says that their chief worry was lest they 
shouldn't find enough straw to sleep on, or at 
least enough to tie up their feet in bundles to 
keep them warm. 

At Mouzon they crossed the Meuse, and 
here Coco slept more comfortably than he 
had for a week, on a sack full of straw at a 
farm. After a day's wait for orders — and 
no meat even here — they set out again, 
passed through Carignan, and soon reached 
the last village in France — Florenville. 

[17] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



" Don't send me any more French money," 
Coco here wrote to his mother. " It won't 
be any use to me now ! " Poor Coco ! How 
little did he know how soon he was to re- 
turn! 



On the morning of August 21 they crossed 
the boundary. Hurrahs from the men — 
they were going forward to conquer ! They 
were going to deliver this brave little country 
from the barbaric invader who had laid it 
waste. Coco was thrilled with the nobility 
of their mission. "Vive la France!" he 
shouted with all the rest; but alas, the ap- 
proaching thunderstorm soon damped his 
spirits. The rain poured down in torrents, 
down the back of his neck and into his shoes. 
Coming to a halt, they bivouacked in a 
wide field. It thundered and it lightened. 
Soaked and cheerless, the regiment tried 

[18] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



to sleep. The fires wouldn't burn. One 
couldn't even smoke a cigarette. As Coco 
turned on his side the water oozed under him 
sloshily. 

He dozed off, however, after a while, only 
to be awakened by a punch in the ribs. 
"Listen!" Francois was saying. "What's 
that? " 

" Thunder, of course ! " Coco, irritated, 
rolled over again, opened his eyes after a 
while, and saw Francois still sitting up, alert. 

" That's not thunder ! " he exclaimed. 
" Listen! it's cannonading! " 

Coco sat up now quickly enough. Others 
woke up to swear at them ^r— ■ and then they 
listened, too. 

"Look!" cried Francois. Galloping 
down the road came a dispatch rider. He 
halted, was challenged by the sentry, and 
turned in at the colonel's headquarters. 
Then he was off again, splattering, clattering 

i '9 3 



WAR THE CREATOR 



through the mud. Then a bugle call: 
"Fall in!" All over the field the wet men 
jumped up, slung on their belts, grabbed their 
rifles and formed dismally in the rain. As 
they stood waiting, word ran down the 
column — Frangois passed it to Coco — 
"The enemy!" An ammunition wagon 
drove up ■ — boxes of cartridges were dis- 
tributed. " Load ! " ordered the captains. 
The ranks were fairly buzzing now, every- 
one asking questions, nobody answering. A 
whistle blew. " Forward, march! " Coco 
had no thought of the rain now ! The guns 
grew louder, but still no enemy was visible. 
The cannonading slackened, grew faint, thun- 
dered off in another direction, died, began 
again far away. But the rumbling was al- 
ways ahead — the regiment was marching 
nearer and nearer the fighting. And so on 
to Bertrix, fifteen miles from the frontier. 
Coco rather liked Bertrix. Bertrix rather 

[ 20 ] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



more than liked Coco. The pretty little 
Luxemburg town welcomed him and all the 
other young " piou-pious " as its saviors. 
Nothing was too good for the French soldier 
boys who had come to deliver them from the 
Huns. What do you want — cigarettes? 
beer? bacon? It was quite a jolly affair, 
with the streets full of smiling women and 
young girls smiling too, bringing fruit and 
eggs and preserves, and good, fresh butter. 

Coco was already a hero — and, after 
eight days without meat, that bacon was cer- 
tainly good! How they all laughed and 
chattered ! But the old men stood apart and 
listened anxiously; for, through all that re- 
joicing there came steadily the distant sound 
of guns. Surely the Germans were coming 
nearer! If they ever got to Bertrix — 
The old men shook their heads with forebod- 
ing. 

Again the whistle blew — ■ Forward! The 

1**1 



WAR THE CREATOR 



enemy was only a few miles away now; it 
was getting exciting. The boys, proud, 
patriotic, confident, started " La Mar- 
seillaise " and the song was taken up by the 
whole column — " Marchons! Marchons! " 
they sang — but Coco was singing, he admits, 
to keep up his courage, as he tramped on 
through the mud to be shot at. He tried to 
keep in mind that he was marching on glori- 
ously to fight for his country ; but he couldn't 
help thinking of what he had heard of those 
terrible machine guns at Liege and Namur. 

Halt! The captain whipped out his field 
glasses — everybody gazed eagerly ahead. 
There it was, there! coming steadily nearer, 
flying low — a German aeroplane — a 
" Taube " reconnoitering. There was a 
quick order. As the whir of the motor grew 
nearer the lieutenant of Coco's platoon 
pointed. "Aim!" Fifteen rifles were 
thrown up, covering the monoplane. 
[22] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



" Steady, now, men — wait till she comes 
near enough — now, Fire! " 

Coco fired, jammed down the lever of his 
gun, shot again, again. Almost over their 
heads the flyer seemed to stop, turned, vol- 
planed swiftly down — it was too good to be 
true — swept lower in a wide curve. Then 
men, shouting, ran for it as it swooped into 
the field beside the road. Coco ran for his 
first sight of a German. 

Two officers in khaki, limp and pale, were 
strapped to the seats. One was unconscious, 
with a red hole in his neck. The other pain- 
fully unfastened his strap, and came forward, 
staggering. He saluted the captain stiffly, a 
queer smile on his blond German face. Coco 
heard him say in perfect French: 

" I am badly wounded, monsieur. This 
is my last trip, I'm afraid. Ah, well; you 
are going to beat us in the end, no doubt. 
With all your allies there's little hope for us. 

[23] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



But you'll have to shed a good deal of blood 
before you win!" Then he suddenly col- 
lapsed. Coco saw him fall on the ground in 
a faint. 

" It gave me a mighty queer feeling," 
Coco told me, " to look at that dark spot of 
blood gradually growing bigger and bigger 
over that officer's breast. I remember that 
I wondered if it had been my rifle ball that 
had wounded him. And that other German, 
too — I wondered if I had already killed a 
man. If I had, why wasn't it murder? 
What was the difference between war and 
murder, anyway? Of course these barbar- 
ians were invading my country, but — yes, it 
was my duty to protect France, but — well, I 
had to give it up. You know there are 
priests fighting in the ranks, too, in this war, 
m'sieur! They must know. It's all right, 
I suppose — and yet there is always that 
' but ' when you see a thing like that. Well, 



WAR THE CREATOR 



it was too exciting then for much philosophy. 
You see, the cannons were getting louder all 
the time, and the whistle blew and we 
marched on again. But somehow we didn't 
feel much like singing any more ! " 

Near rising ground they halted. The of- 
ficers hurried forward, and with field glasses 
inspected the country ahead; then called the 
column on. Now they were actually in the 
danger zone — a wide expanse of fields, 
dotted with farms here and there, and across, 
a mile away, were woods, dark, sinister. It 
was a sunny afternoon ; the odor of the damp, 
warm earth was clean and pungent. There 
were wide stretches of yellow stubble fields, 
where the wheat had been lately cut. Some 
sheaves were still standing, as if the war had 
interrupted the harvest, half done. 

As they advanced cautiously the cannonad- 
ing ceased. Somehow to Coco the silence 
was more dreadful even than that incessant 



WAR THE CREATOR 



muffled reverberation. But those woods yon- 
der — what dangers were they hiding? 
Every eye was strained in that direction. 

Deploying to the left of the road, Coco's 
company made for a whitewashed farmhouse 
half a mile away, across the fields. The 
other companies fanned out to either side. 

No one seemed to know just what was go- 
ing to happen. Coco's lieutenant, a jolly, 
talkative young fellow who had always used 
to keep his platoon roaring at his jokes, was 
now unwontedly serious and silent. Coco 
watched him. He marched on with his field 
glasses held constantly to his eyes, tripping 
over roots and bushes and stones and swear- 
ing as he went. 

On and on toward that dark, mysterious 
wood through beet fields, across ditches, over 
hedges they went, till they came to a cross- 
road leading into the farm. Here they 
halted. 

[26] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



Coco, nervous, apprehensive, jumped at 
hearing his name called out. " Cucurou! 
Br acques! Lemaitre! Go forward and 
reconnoiter ! Careful, now, men ! " 



VI 

Coco wondered why they had to call on 
him; but, well, it had to be done, his duty, 
and he did it. With a man on either side of 
him he walked forward gingerly through a 
field where cows were grazing, nearer and 
nearer that horrible wood. He didn't dare 
look at the ground; as he stumbled on his eyes 
never left that wood, so deathly still and mys- 
terious. Were there Germans hidden in 
those trees? It was his duty to find out. 
Bracques and Lemaitre didn't falter ; so Coco 
didn't falter. He kept right on, nearer and 
nearer. His one idea was the importance of 
first seeing the enemy. 

1 27 1 



WAR THE CREATOR 



Then, suddenly, he heard a high, sharp 
whistling through the air, and the bullet spat- 
tered the earth viciously in front of him. A 
report cracked lazily out from the trees. 
Another whistle, another, and the pattering 
grew nearer. Coco dropped flat on the 
ground, and crawled cautiously up to a big 
rock and looked over the top, watching. 
Still nothing was visible. The balls came 
faster now; but he crawled warily forward, 
dragging himself along the ground a little 
further. 

Lemaitre yelled, "Come on back! we've 
drawn their fire — that's enough," and Coco, 
with his heart thumping, was glad enough to 
return, running for all he was worth till he 
had reached his company. The men were 
fretful and restless with excitement, nervous, 
exclamatory. With a high, snoring drone, a 
German shell came driving through the air 
-. — a boom from the woods — then a sudden, 

[28] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



terrifying crash as of thunder let loose as it 
burst in the rear. Coco turned to see a vol- 
cano of black smoke and earth behind him. 
" Lie down! " shouted the officers, and the 
men only too willingly dropped flat in the 
road. " At first," said Coco, " the men lay 
looking up into the air trying to see the shells 
— imagining that they really could ! But 
when the things dropped closer, they began 
to dodge — as if one could escape them that 
way ! " More shells came, and more, buzz- 
ing through the air in a screeching crescendo, 
bursting with appalling smashes nearer and 
nearer the line. Then a whistle blew. For- 
ward! All along the front men jumped up, 
ran ahead, dropped, then rose and ran fur- 
ther in a long, irregular skirmish line, toward 
that vicious wood. As they advanced, the 
cannonading burst into a double, triple fury, 
and the harsh barking of machine guns be- 
gan — and never once stopped. A hundred 

[29] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



yards from the trees the whistle blew again to 
halt, and then the din grew unbearable, a 
crashing thunder with shells bursting here, 
there, in front, behind, in continual explosion. 
Swept by that murderous tornado, they had 
to lie down and wait. And wait. And wait. 
And wait. . . . 

A scream of agony! Coco saw on his 
left a geyser of debris — clods of earth, 
stones, dust, and smoke, and two men thrown 
bodily upward. Another crash — nearer — 
he saw men's heads and torn-off limbs flying 
past him. Coco himself, when he rose on one 
knee to fire (for he was emptying his rifle 
madly into the wood now) , was thrown down 
again and again by the concussion of the air. 
He saw sudden upheavals appear — dirt, 
maimed bodies, rocks, knapsacks, rifles, 
thrown every way — and a hole would be 
left big enough for half a dozen men to take 
refuge in. Once he himself was buried up to 

[3°] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



his waist with flying dirt, his eyes were filled 
with dust and he could hardly breathe — the 
noxious fumes of the lyddite choked him. 
And always in his ears the incessant crash, 
bang, crash of the devastating, bursting shells 
till he couldn't think. "Lie down! Lie 
down! " the officers shouted continually, but 
the men were now frenzied with the slaugh- 
ter; they were on their knees, on their feet, 
shooting insanely into that secret, hellish 
wood, screaming curses. 

And, all the time, where was the enemy? 
Nobody knew. Oh, if it had only come to a 
reckless charge against no matter what force, 
it would at least have been a chance for re- 
venge; they would have gone forward like 
mad dogs. But instead, they had to wait — 
wait — wait to be killed! Coco saw his 
friends wounded one by one. Coco said: 
" Each man when he was hit would throw his 
arms up over his head — always, it was that 

[31] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



same gesture • — and then he would fall, 
bleeding." 

VII 

The nerve-racking, deafening din went on 
and on without a respite. Bracques was hit 
in the head — he was a living, breathing 
horror, his whole jaw gone — one hand 
plucking at his coat. He lay grotesquely un- 
comfortable on his back, rolling this way and 
rolling that way on his knapsack and his tin 
gamelle and the dozen other accouterments he 
couldn't get rid of. A dozen lads he had 
gone to school with in Toulouse were scream- 
ing. One called for his mother again and 
again, "Maman! Maman! Maman! " 
Most of the wounded lay still in their blood, 
or moaned and writhed in their agony. On 
Coco's left, he said, was a body without a 
head. Coco, he confessed, thought more 
than once of running. What was the use of 

[32] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



staying only to be butchered? They could 
do no good that way. But still the regiment 
held its place; yes, but the regiment was 
getting strangely thin. It could not last 
long. 

Coco looked round for Frangois, who 
should have been beside him. There he was, 
close by, grinning. He called out something 
to keep up Coco's courage, but in that inferno 
Coco couldn't hear a word. Then, instantly, 
there was a gigantic explosion; and when 
Coco rose again, he looked — he grew numb. 
There was Francois on his back — with both 
legs queerly bent in an impossible position. 
With a sickening wave of nausea Coco saw 
that both the boy's legs were shockingly 
crushed, all but torn off, and his red panta- 
loons were soaking in blood. Frangois's face 
was horrible now; his eyes were shining 
wildly. Coco, shrinking with horror, man- 
aged to crawl toward him. . . . 

[33] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



In the hospital at Toulouse, when Coco 
told me this, lying in his cot, he shrank con- 
vulsively into himself with horror, just as he 
must have recoiled, I fancy, that day. He 
wouldn't look at me. His eyes were fixed on 
the window. Coco told me then that Fran- 
gois's legs were torn " quite off " — he was 
sure of it; but I imagine that, in his agony of 
horror, Coco must have been mistaken, or 
Frangois would have bled to death very 
quickly. Coco says he lived for nearly three- 
quarters of an hour. At any rate, his chum 
was done for, and suffering torments unspeak- 
able. 

" He just looked at me and begged me to 
kill him," said Coco, his eyes still on the win- 
dow. " He said " — Coco could hardly 
speak now — " he said if — 'I was his friend 
— I'd finish him — so he wouldn't suffer. 
There was such a terrible noise of the shells 
bursting that I couldn't quite hear at first — 

[34] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



I had to hold my head close to get what he 
said. . . . He said — if he had helped me, 
ever — now was my chance to be his friend 
. . . and put him out of his misery. . . ." 

We were silent for a while. I was look- 
ing at him, getting up my courage to ask a 
question. Finally I dared. I simply had to 
ask it : 

"Did you do it, Coco?" 

The tears poured into Coco's eyes now. 
He shook his head slowly, without a word. 

• " Do you regret not having — done what 
he wanted, Coco ? " 

Coco said simply, " I don't know. / 
would have wanted to die quickly. Perhaps 
as his friend I ought to have done it. But I 
am a good Catholic, you know, m'sieur; and 
I was taught that it is a sin to take human 
life." Quite naturally he added: "And 
yet I suppose I have killed a lot of Germans." 
He shook his head wearily. " I can't under- 

[35] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



stand it. I must leave it for the church to 
decide. I did the best I could. . . ." 

VIII 

At last he turned and looked at me with an 
expression that made me feel guilty enough 
at having asked. " But that isn't all, m'sieur ; 
I haven't told you the worst part yet. Last 
week his father — Francois's father — came 
here to see me. He asked me if I knew any- 
thing about Francois — how he died. What 
could I say? Of course I couldn't tell him. 
I saw him fall — that's all I said. And I 
was glad, then, that I hadn't done it. . . . 
No, I can't talk about it any more, m'sieur. 
Don't ask me to, please! " 

IX 

For two hours the Twentieth Regiment en- 
dured the storm of shell. To advance a 
[36] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



regiment of infantry like that without artil- 
lery support was surely an incredible piece of 
criminal stupidity. Some one had blundered. 
But there were many blunders in those early 
days of the campaign, and the truth hasn't 
all come out even yet. 

One interesting fact, however, did come 
out; although Coco didn't hear of it for sev- 
eral days. It was a piece of sublime senti- 
mentality impossible in any other than a 
French army; quite consistent with the char- 
acter of the romantic, high-spirited colonel 
who had orated so grandiloquently at the 
Toulouse railway station. The night before 
the battle of Bertrix, the colonel had done a 
strange thing ; he had, in the presence of his 
staff, burned the regimental colors. The 
enemy was in countless force against him. 
His Gallic sense of honor, when he was or- 
dered to attack an impregnable position, told 
him that there was only one thing to do. He 

[37] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



must go forward with his men, and die — but 
the flag must not be captured. 

And so, go forward and die he did, that 
gallant old man. As Coco lay, under that 
August sun, in the rain of bursting shells, he 
heard a bugle ring out on the left flank. 
Four companies rose to their feet and charged 
that murderous wood. At their head the 
colonel ran, waving his sword — yes, just like 
the battle pictures, Coco swears — ran for a 
few hundred yards toward his inevitable 
death, and dropped — with his honor unsul- 
lied. Behind him his men dropped, too, in 
appalling numbers — dropped singly and in 
bunches till they faltered, stopped, then fell 
back. 

At this, the whistles blew at last for the 
general retreat. 

It was high time; for, at the sight of this 
destruction all over the field, men had al- 
ready begun to jump up and run toward the 

[38] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



rear. Now they all ran — everybody ran — 
with the shells and shrapnel chasing them. 
They threw away their knapsacks, they threw 
away their guns, they ran screaming and cry- 
ing like children. 

Coco threw away his knapsack and 
musette, too, but kept his rifle as he ran, mak- 
ing for a shelter in the woods on the other 
side of the road. " You've no idea how 
much worse they were, those shells; when I 
had turned my back I expected to be hit every 
moment. My spine fairly cringed." The 
remnants of the colonel's four companies 
were pulled together and attempted to cover 
the retreat. But the regiment had stam- 
peded. The officers shouted and swore, they 
struck men with their swords, some were even 
shot, but nothing could stop the rout. 



[39] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



X 

It was more than a rout, it was a panic. 
Into the wood the shells followed them — 
there seemed to be no escape. Every mo- 
ment they expected to see the uhlans charging 
them down. Dodging this way, that way, 
deafened, shouting over here — over there 
— the shells dropping to right, to left, as if 
from the clouds, the men, breathless, ex- 
hausted, poured out upon a road, to stagger 
back almost run over by a clattering battery 
of guns galloping, too late, galloping toward 
the firing line. They stopped to pant, and 
rest; and then ran on. 

In half an hour they were out of the range 
of the German artillery, and they halted ex- 
hausted, shamefaced, sick with terror and 
despair. The officers, too heartbroken even 
to swear at them, reformed their men with 
difficulty, and, herding them like frightened 

[40] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



sheep, fell back in something like order till 
they came upon a line of trenches that had 
been occupied by the Germans. 

The pits were filled instantly, and the men 
were beginning to regain their calmness and 
courage, when from a near-by hill the terri- 
fying cannonade recommenced. The butch- 
ery recommenced — the explosions, and the 
screams. 

Out of the trenches came all that were left 
alive, and there was no stopping the army 
now, till, hurrying all night long without food 
and rest, demoralized, it found its way back 
to Mouzon. Here the Seventeenth Corps 
was pulled together for a hasty review. The 
roll call showed that in Coco's regiment there 
were 1,443 dead, wounded, or missing — 
fully one-third of its strength gone. 

The men were in a fury of disappointment 
and rage against the generals who had been 
responsible for the massacre. Where was 

[41] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



the artillery? Where were the stretcher 
bearers? Where were the ambulances and 
surgeons ? Not one did Coco see during the 
battle, after the battle — nor even during 
that whole terrible retreat. 

And it wasn't at Mouzon alone that there 
was wondering, complaining, raging at the 
failure of the campaign. On the left wing 
the British expeditionary force, hot with rage 
at not being supported by General Percin, 
was falling back from defeat at Mons to pur- 
suit at Bavay — and it was not yet out of 
danger. On the right, the Fifteenth Corps 
(fat cowards of the Midi) had turned tail 
and run in Lorraine. Oh, there was some- 
thing rotten somewhere. Paris was wild. 
The Government was shuffled, and the Presi- 
dent dealt out a new hand — his high trump 
was Millerand, new Minister of War, but his 
right bower was Joffre, commander in chief, 
of whom all the world was soon to hear. To 

[42] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



Coco at Mouzon, the news came that the 
Fourth Army was to be commanded by Gen- 
eral de Langle de Carry. Little did Coco 
care who commanded it. Much more impor- 
tant than that was that he would get one 
night's good sleep on a sack of straw. 

By this time the boy had begun to realize 
what war meant. That night he wrote to his 
aunt: " I have received my baptism of fire, 
but I am unhurt. It was terrible. Don't be 
frightened, and be sure and write to my 
mother that you have had good news from 
me." He signed the post card for the first 
time " Georges." Coco had begun to be a 
man. 

If it has ever been your lot to go without 
having your clothes off for two weeks — to 
march through dust and mud in them, sleep in 
them, fight in them, run in them — then you'll 
understand how Georges Cucurou longed for 
a swim in the river Meuse — to bathe his 

[43] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



poor, aching blistered feet. But no — up 
and out again at six o'clock next morning! 
Off on the road toward Belgium again. A 
counter-attack. All day and all night they 
marched. 

XI 

There was no singing, this time. The 
Twentieth was smarting with the shame of its 
defeat ; it was savage for revenge ; but, held 
in reserve behind the battle line, it had to wait 
listening to the booming cannon and the 
crackle of machine guns for an impatient 
hour — then they were ordered back to 
Mouzon. 

At Mouzon, news of a fresh defeat awaited 
them. The town was now distraught, 
terror-stricken by the ever-nearing, ever-in- 
creasing thunder of the German cannonade. 
When Georges arrived at midnight, almost 
every house was lighted. The frenzied in- 

[44] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



habitants were packing up or hiding their be- 
longings, ready to fly. The " Bosches " were 
coming ! 

At dawn, Georges, sleeping by the road- 
side, was awakened to see a pathetic proces- 
sion of refugees hurrying away to safety. 
Pathetic? It was tragic, comic, grotesque, 
sublime! Everyone was dressed in his best 
clothes; everyone carried bundles, carried 
hens, carried trunks, carried the Lord knows 
what — and the memories of 1870 to boot! 
Wagon after wagon passed, piled high with 
furniture, bags, boxes, baskets, and provi- 
sions, with women and children atop, and 
cows tied on behind. Whole families — 
three generations — trudged on foot, men 
and women and children, children, children, 
children, and weeping old grandmothers 
trundled along in wheelbarrows. 



[45] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



XII 

It was a bitter sight for Georges, burning 
to defend his country. What was the French 
army good for, anyway, if it couldn't protect 
this pretty, innocent little town, so charm- 
ingly scattered over the wooded heights of 
the Meuse? But Mouzon was doomed. 
Already the sappers with wires and sticks of 
melinite were blowing up the picturesque old 
stone bridge. 

All next day Georges's regiment, hidden in 
the woods, watched the shelling of the town; 
all next night, hungry, soaked with rain, en- 
raged, they saw it burn, house by house, till 
at last the flames licked up the belfry of the 
church. That was the way they defended 
Mouzon. 

Another day; another night of drenching 
rain in those wretched sopping woods, while 
the German guns boomed all about them. 

[46] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



Georges and two other boys succeeded in 
building a dirty little shelter of branches 
covered with wet straw, and they crawled un- 
derneath. Water-soaked, the clumsy thing 
collapsed on top of them in the middle of the 
night; but, heavy with soldiers' sleep, it took 
more than that to wake them. In the morn- 
ing, however, a shell bursting only a few 
yards away did succeed in bringing them 
stumbling out from under the soggy mass — 
to find to their amazement that their regi- 
ment had already departed I 



XIII 

The shells began to fall thicker and faster ; 
the Germans were indubitably near at hand. 
But where the devil was the regiment? 
There was no knowing, except that it was 
pretty sure to be getting away from those 
harrying shells. Chilled, the boys ran 

[47] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



through the dripping woods till they came to 
a clearing. Here, looking down, they saw 
the Germans fording the Meuse ! But not 
without trouble; a French battery had got 
their range, and was playing red havoc with 
them, slinging shell after shell of well-aimed 
shrapnel. By dozens they melted away un- 
der the fire, and the water w?s full of bob- 
bing corpses drifting downstream. 

" We just burst out laughing," said 
Georges. " We couldn't help it. Not that 
it was so funny to see men killed like that by 
the hundreds, but, after all we had gone 
through — after the ghastly way we had 
been butchered at Bertrix, it really did me 
good to see those ' Bosches ' suffering them- 
selves at last! " 

He didn't laugh long. With the German 
reckless sacrifice of life, column after column 
was thrown into the river, until more and 
more got across. It was time for the boys 

[48] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



to be moving now, and they set out toward 
the westward, tramped all day, eating noth- 
ing but the raw beets they dug up in the fields, 
and finally found the Seventeenth Corps at 
Raucourt. 

They were just in time to join their regi- 
ment as it was ordered forward seven more 
miles for a new engagement. There, pro- 
tected by the French batteries, they 
bivouacked. Glad enough was Georges of a 
chance to sleep. No fear of the coming bat- 
tle could keep him awake by this time. 

At dawn, while the vigilant searchlights 
were still playing across the opposite hill- 
side, the French guns started firing, and, 
without breakfast, Georges's battalion was 
ordered forward. In half an hour the enemy 
was discovered half a mile away. In the 
valley between opposite hills the shells were 
screeching now over their heads — from the 
French " 75's " the sound of the whizzing 

[49] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



projectiles came high and dry like buzz saws 

— they burst with the awful battering of 
near-by thunder. The German " marmites " 
snorted through the air, and exploded with 
a deeper, more terrible crash. The regi- 
ment halted, and was deployed in four ranks 

— the first two lying on the ground, the third 
and fourth kneeling. 

The men were mostly quite cool, but 
Georges confessed that he himself had hard 
work controlling his nerves while he waited 
for that attack. In ten minutes the enemy 
appeared from behind rising ground and 
came on — a long, gray-black line of thou- 
sands and thousands of men, a thick line, 
swarming, multitudinous, nearer and nearer. 

"Load!" coolly commanded the cap- 
tains; "500 meters. Ready, now — fire!" 
Their salvo rang out. The heavy rows of 
Germans seemed to hesitate for a moment; 
but no, they were only stopping to fire. 

[ 5° 1 



WAR THE CREATOR 



There came a sudden whistling in the air all 
about and the bullets flew — " for a terribly 
long minute," as Georges described it — then 
the enemy came on again, and kept on com- 
ing, in a broad, thick wave, company after 
company. And only a battalion of four 
companies to resist them! Georges fired 
without aiming. What was the use of aim- 
ing at that horde of men ? The boys jumped 
to their feet, fired again and again, and then, 
as their comrades dropped about them every- 
where, they began to retreat, some picking 
up the wounded as they went. At first they 
withdrew in order, turning back to fire an- 
other volley; but when the Germans fixed 
their bayonets and came at them on the 
double-quick, the French broke, and ran for 
it, helter-skelter, this way and that, in a sec- 
ond rout, even worse than the first. 

Georges ran with the rest, and the shrap- 
nel followed him, killing men on either hand, 

[so 



WAR THE CREATOR 



in front, behind. Then, over the rise, came 
the uhlans, yelling, galloping in to cut them 
up. Looking back, Georges saw the cavalry 
sabering and lancing, and he ran like a deer 
for his life, ran up the hillside, ran into the 
woods. He ran for at least a mile with the 
thunder of the cannon still in his ears. 
When, finally, he stopped to take breath, it 
was only a fragment of his company that he 
found near him — some ten or eleven men, 
among them a sergeant. Where were the 
others ? Nobody knew. The regiment, de- 
moralized, had split up into numberless terri- 
fied detachments, and wandered all over the 
countryside. Such was the inglorious bat- 
tle of Raucourt. Of the week following 
Georges could give no consecutive account. 
He remembers only that he and the others 
tramped and tramped for miles inquiring of 
peasants, gendarmes, of the stragglers, 
everyone, everywhere, the whereabouts of 
[52] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



the Twentieth Regiment. They climbed 
over hills, they rested in little deserted vil- 
lages where every house was gutted of furni- 
ture, doors open, rooms littered, and here 
and there a starved cat or two, lean and wild. 
The roads were alive with refugees, French 
and Belgian, all plodding mournfully toward 
the south, dreary processions of wagons and 
cattle and weeping women, children, and 
stony-eyed, sulky men. No, nobody had seen 
the Twentieth Regiment. 

They tramped from Villers to Malmy, 
and, apparently (Georges isn't quite sure 
where they did go), from Malmy to Maire. 
At Le Vivier, or perhaps it was Mont Dieu, 
they found an infantry regiment, but it was 
not their own. The Twentieth should be 
down Vouziers way, said the officers. So 
they trudged on. 

More and more stray men had joined 
Georges's party. Few of them had knap- 

[53] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



sacks, some didn't even have guns. Hats of 
all kinds ; costumes — promiscuous but all 
disheveled. They were, by this time, a 
villainously whiskered lot — ragged, dirty, 
weary, famished, sullen, desperate — with- 
out discipline, without leaders. Occasionally, 
in some ransacked village they found stale 
bread or vegetables that they cooked in the 
woods; whatever else they ate was begged 
from the few frightened peasants that still 
remained on their farms. 

There was one village, however, that 
Georges did remember, and that was Les 
Alleux. There he slept in an actual bed. 
How Les Alleux happened to be abandoned 
with all its houses undisturbed — with the 
clocks still going and the furniture in place, 
even the beds made up — Georges doesn't 
know. Some sudden alarm had evidently 
caused the inhabitants to fly at a moment's 
notice. What mainly interested him was 

[54] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



that they had left their barnyards full of 
poultry. 

Les Alleux was almost gay. There were 
some hundred soldiers collected there, now; 
all tatterdemalion stragglers from the rout, 
making the most of their unexpected good 
luck. There was almost everything to eat 
except bread. Georges fairly gorged him- 
self on hot roast chicken and cheese, made 
merry with the rabble of soldiery, sang, 
smoked, and then slept for twelve solid 
hours, with his boots off on a delectable 
feather bed and sheets. And, for once, 
without the din of cannon in his ears. 

This, however, was hardly the way to save 
his country. Georges's conscience and the 
booming of German guns awoke him to his 
duty next morning. The mob scattered, flee- 
ing south in a hurry. Georges's party, he 
found when they started, had grown smaller. 
" I don't know whether or not I ought to 

[55] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



mention this detail," he told me, " but at 
least it will show that I wasn't quite so bad as 
the rest. But I think some of the boys found 
citizens' clothes in the houses there at Les 
Alleux, and got away in them. At any rate, 
they didn't come along with us." 

His Odyssey ended at a village called 
Pauvres on the highroad between Rethel and 
Vouziers. Here they found what was left 
of the Twentieth Regiment, and Georges was 
welcomed like one from the dead. All re- 
ceived new rifles and accouterments, and the 
regiment was reorganized. Of its three bat- 
talions there remained hardly enough to form 
two — a third was made up of waifs and 
strays from other divisions. 



XIV 

The Twentieth Regiment now contained a 
sad and sorry lot of men, weary, discouraged, 

[56] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



shamefaced, and sullen at their double de- 
feat. But when they heard that the army 
was to retreat still further, and abandon all 
this rich, flourishing northern country to the 
invaders without a blow — why, it was in- 
credible ! What was the matter ? Where 
were their reinforcements? Only fifteen 
days ago they had been marching enthusi- 
astically up through the lovely forest of Ar- 
gonne. Now they were going to retreat into 
Champagne. But they were too busy with 
preparations to spend much time sulking. 
The officers declared that they would lead 
their men to victory yet. So the retreat com- 
menced to the booming accompaniment of 
the threatening German artillery. 

Little did Georges know of cool old Gen- 
eral Joffre and his desperate plans. Little 
did he imagine that the endless falling back, 
falling back, falling back through Champagne 
was to go down into history as a masterpiece 

[57] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



of Fabian strategy. All he understood of 
that campaign was — day after day of re- 
treating along the hard white roads, then into 
the fields and digging trenches; night after 
night standing ready in those clayey shoulder- 
deep holes, waiting for an attack, while the 
first line of the rear guard fought constantly 
with the enemy. So they did their best to 
hold back the flood of invaders. So they 
struggled with the booming cannon ever fol- 
lowing them. It was hard, sour work! 
The men, exhausted with the digging and the 
marching and the watching, with their few 
hours' sleep constantly interrupted by alarms, 
trudged hopelessly southward, too glum to 
talk. Constantly the officers encouraged 
them — " Just to that hill there, men ! Come 
on ! " but it took more than their optimism 
to restore the courage of the troops. Man 
after man stopped, absolutely incapable of 
going further, and slumped down by the side 

[58] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



of the road only to be forced on, kicked on 
again by the corps of gendarmes which fol- 
lowed the march. If the column halted for 
a minute, half the men fell instantly asleep as 
they stood. 

The minute the trenches were dug they had 
to prepare to receive the enemy. Mighty 
little food these days, and no fresh meat. 
Even water was scarce, as the men were for- 
bidden to drink of springs till they had been 
inspected. Georges's regiment was, for the 
most part of the retreat, held in the second 
line of the rear guard, and he was, there- 
fore, in but one actual engagement. In the 
general campaign it was called, probably, 
only " a sharp skirmish." But, to Georges, 
it was one of those crises when life says: 
" Come ! Move up a notch ! " 

" I was on sentry duty at the end of the 
trench where the company was sleeping," 
said Georges. " On Tuesday, the 2d of 

[59] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



September it was, near Souain. I knew 
everyone's life depended on me, and it was 
a terrible strain. You know the enemy was 
always right on our heels, night and day. 
M'sieu, I was just all eyes, searching every- 
where through the dark. It must have been 
about two in the morning, when I thought I 
saw something moving on the opposite hill- 
side. At first I wasn't quite sure. I had to 
pull my eyes away deliberately, and rest 
them on something else — you know how 
your eyes get when you stare too hard and 
too long; but then, when I looked again 
quickly, I was sure. Yes, the ' Bosches ' 
were coming ! It was horrible. I saw them 
creeping from one bush to another like 
snakes. 

" I kicked the sergeant who was snoring 
at my feet and pointed. Instantly all our 
men were quietly awakened. My lieutenant 
told me to stay where I was and pretend not 

[60] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



to see anything; but to choose my man and 
be ready to fire. Yes, monsieur; it was a 
ticklish job; I felt rather queer, I confess. I 
knew that I would be the very first one to be 
shot at. That was about the longest fifteen 
minutes I ever spent. 

" Well, we let them crawl up, crawl up, to 
within a hundred meters and then just as 
they all jumped to their feet, the lieutenant 
shouted : ' Fire at will ! ' I was ready for 
the foremost man, and I let him have it right 
through the forehead. Here is his helmet, 
monsieur; see that hole? " 

In the hospital at Toulouse, while I listened 
to his story, he held up a black helmet, 
trimmed with brass — with a spiked top. It 
had never left him since that day. 

Yes, I saw that hole — the hole where he 
had killed his man. But, when I saw him 
look at that German helmet, there was an ex- 
pression on his face that baffled me. I 

[61] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



didn't know what it meant, but I knew that 
Coco wasn't there — Coco, with the lead 
pencil! No, this was a new person now on 
that bed in front of me. It was Georges 
Cucurou' — and he would never be a boy 
again ! 

XV 

During that terrible retreat, Georges, had 
been a part of a working, fighting machine, 
tried to his utmost in mind and body. He 
had been hammered, hammered into shape. 
Hunger and fatigue had hardened him. 
Every day his nerves had been getting more 
tough and strong. If his duty consisted of 
retreating, digging, sleeping three or four 
hours a day, going without meat and often 
without water or wine, he could do it. 

On a post card, scrawled in haste from 
somewhere (no postmark, no date, no indica- 



WAR THE CREATOR 



tion of any locality being permitted), he 
wrote to his aunt : 

Dear Aunt: 7/ we keep on retreating 
like this, we may perhaps get to Paris. I 
should be very glad to see you, of course, but 
I hope not. There must soon be an end of 
all this digging and digging, and victory will 
be ours. I am afraid you wouldn't recog- 
nize your Georges. 

Indeed, she wouldn't have recognized him, 
but, not only because for weeks he had the 
dirt caked in his hands and hair and ears, and 
his uniform hung on him in rags, but partly 
too because already in his face there was be- 
ginning to show something more unlike the 
old Coco we had known than all that change 
in his outward self could make him. He 
had learned patience, perseverance, caution, 
confidence in his officers, and faith in the ulti- 

[6 3 ] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



mate victory. He was uplifted by that great 
wave of high idealism that was transforming 
France. 

Why that steady retreat, further and fur- 
ther south? Georges and Georges's com- 
pany, now that they were tempered by expe- 
rience, now that they were raging to attack, 
couldn't understand. But still they retreated 
and retreated. Back to Suippes they came. 

It was a queer entrance that regiment made 
into Suippes. On the road, they had over- 
taken a troop of refugees who, utterly ex- 
hausted, could travel no further. The peas- 
ants had a panic of alarm at sight of the col- 
umn, thinking that the Germans were already 
upon them. It was hard work reassur- 
ing them; and it ended in a comedy, the 
soldiers taking a hand at the migration. Old 
Women were mounted in the handcarts they 
had been trying to pull and were given a ride 
into town. Soldiers unharnessed the don- 

[6 4 ] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



keys and put the children on their backs. 
They pushed at the wagons, they helped along 
the graybeards, they carried babies in their 
arms; Georges, I think, must have begun to 
realize that he had grown up when he, a vet- 
eran now, marched into Suippes, carrying a 
big basket for a lad of fifteen who looked up 
to his soldier protector admiringly, and called 
him " M'sieu." 

No Frenchman will ever forget that dread- 
ful first week of September, 19 14. Every 
day the Germans grew nearer Paris, every 
day their cowardly aeroplanes sailed over the 
capital and dropped their futile threats. 
What was the French army doing? We 
hoped they were merely luring the enemy to- 
ward the forts of Paris where the big guns 
could smash them. But could the army hold 
the enemy back, even with that assistance? 
Paris was all nervous apprehension. Then 
that astounding news r—r the German army, 

[65] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



almost within striking distance, was swerving 
to the southeast! What did it mean? 

To Georges Cucurou, retreating before 
those hammering, hammering guns, that quick 
change in direction was quite as mysterious. 
From Suippes his regiment, without stopping 
to entrench now, marching day and night, in- 
stead of keeping on toward Paris, swung 
sharply to the east, along the road to Ste. 
Menehould. Then, as suddenly, they turned 
back again into Chalons. 

Heavy cannonading was coming now from 
almost every direction except the south. 
Every man was tense with excitement — 
battle was in the air — surely something was 
going to happen, must happen ! But further 
and further south they marched; and along 
the roads, now, the automobiles were flying 
like mad, night and day, some with officers, 
some flying the Red Cross flag. Over their 
heads there were French aeroplanes, every 
[66] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



day the sky was never quite free of them. 
Georges caught his first sight of a British 
soldier — a khaki-clad dispatch rider on a 
motorcycle flying past, and another. They 
passed hundreds of Paris autobusses at the 
Division Headquarters, a long, long line that 
filled the village street at Sompuis, and ambu- 
lances, and cycle companies, and farriers' 
wagons, the portable forges glowing red in 
the evening darkness. Georges recognized 
the Senegalese spahis in red flowing robes, he 
saw the Turcos from Morocco — big chil- 
dren they were, grinning black faces with 
shiny white teeth. A wagon flew past, with 
men inside feeding out telephone wire, hook- 
ing it with long poles into the ditch, or over 
bushes, out of the way, as they galloped on. 
Best of all, he began to get fresh meat for 
dinner, from the portable kitchens that hur- 
ried from company to company along the 
road. But always, never stopping, night or 

[67] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



day, more exciting than all the rest, never 
forgotten, no matter what happened, in the 
north, growing ever nearer — the steady 
rumbling thunder of the German guns. 



XVI 

The camp of Mailly was a busy place. 
At the aeroplane sheds the biplanes and 
Bleriots were constantly going and coming, 
circling in the air, or making ready in long 
rows upon the level field. The vast plain 
was filled with troops of all sorts in seemingly 
inextricable confusion : chasseurs, on horse- 
back, in pale blue tunics, the Alpine chasseurs, 
with drooping blue berets on their heads, and 
leggings; cuirassiers with their breastplates 
and long horsehair plumes, and zouaves with 
embroidered jackets and baggy red trousers. 
The Twentieth Regiment, tattered and tired, 
with many heads bandaged and many with 
[68] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



feet through their shoes, dusty, hollow-eyed, 
marched past, not yet too despairing, as 
fresh troops greeted them, to cry in answer 
" Vive la France! " They were not boys 
now, they were soldiers tempered in the 
crucible of war. And among them marched 
Georges Cucurou, with a Prussian helmet tied 
to his knapsack with a shoestring — a Prus- 
sian helmet with a hole through its brass 
front ! 

Already rumors were flying fast from 
column to column. Why this concentration 
of troops? Why this wide circle swung 
around the camp of Mailly? Mon Dieu! 
could it be that they were to retreat no 
longer? That, at last, they were to make a 
stand? A hope like a gaining fire sprang 
up and swept from man to man. 

It was early in the morning of Sunday, 
September 6, that on the heights south of 
Mailly the regiment was assembled for re- 

[69] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



view. To the accompaniment of an inces- 
sant, raging bombardment from the German 
cannon, the colonel read aloud this message 
from General Joffre, Commander in Chief 
of the Allied Forces: 

Children of France, the hour of the great 
battle has arrived! Lift up your hearts! 
If you wish your Country everlasting honor, 
let every man die at his post, if necessary, 
rather than surrender another inch of ground, 
and the victory will be ours. 

It was not Gallic sentimentality now. It 
was the voice of a leader who wasted no 
words. 

There was a shout of rejoicing — "Vive 
la France! " Emotion swept the ranks and 
men wept without shame. The tremendous 
suggestion put into those thousands of minds 
had a terrible potency. Georges said that 

[70] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



morning he felt as if he were intoxicated; he 
grew suddenly like a giant. It seemed as if 
nothing on earth could possibly resist them, 
now. 

Bread and biscuits were handed out and 
the Twentieth Regiment was hurried to a 
wood two miles away. Already they had be- 
gun to move northward. But again it was 
their fate to be held in reserve, while the 
brunt of the attack was given to other 
troops. The Twentieth was held in the 
woods all day, all night, while the shells 
rained in from every direction. Most fell 
in front or behind, but occasionally a " mar- 
mite " would hit the column with devastating 
fury, and send its mutilated victims flying. 
There was nothing for it, however, but to 
stay and stay on, till the last man was killed 
if need were. Whatever happened, the Ger- 
mans must not get by! 

At dawn, they advanced to the edge of the 

[71] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



woods ; but, the instant they emerged into the 
fields, shells and shrapnel poured on them in 
a torrent. So they held their post. Mon- 
day passed without their stirring from those 
woods. No commissary wagons came with 
food — nothing could live in the open. 
They munched their emergency rations, dry 
biscuits. Monday night, Tuesday, Tuesday 
night, and still they stayed. A dispatch 
rider, wounded in the arm, brought orders 
for them to hold hard and never flinch. 

Nothing to eat now but grains of coffee. 
The water was gone from their canteens, long 
ago; but the men stretched out their over- 
coats in the rain, and drank the pools of 
water as fast as they collected. And, al- 
ways, night and day, the thunder of the Ger- 
man guns about them. The din was so ter- 
rific that the men had fairly to shout to each 
other ! — they were almost deaf. 



[72] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



XVII 

On Wednesday morning another messen- 
ger got through with orders to advance. 
From that corpse-strewn wood there emerged 
a band of men that might have been taken 
for theatrical desperadoes. Uniforms in 
shreds, coats gone, shoes gone, knees sticking 
through trousers legs, and elbows through 
sleeves, all plastered with mud to a uniform 
gray, like khaki; wild-eyed with hunger and 
reckless now, everyone's nerves on edge, 
cursing, weeping, mad, ready for anything 
except more inaction! 

Forward! The men, famished as they 
were, yelled at the sound of that welcome 
word. Anywhere, out of that infernal wood 
— anywhere, through any hell, to get at the 
enemy ! Forward they went on the run like 
hounds after hare, and the run warmed them 
up. The sun came out and they raced on, 

1 73 3 



WAR THE CREATOR 



steaming. " We didn't mind the shells at 
all, then," said Coco. " Lying on the ground 
waiting for them at Bertrix we had nothing 
to do but be afraid — but now we had no 
time. All we thought of was to get at those 
cursed ' Bosches ' as fast as we could." And 
so through the bursting shells, across the wide 
field to rising ground. 

It was there, on that hillside, they got a 
sight of what had happened during those 
deadly days along the Marne. First, rows 
and rows of twisted, limp-lying Frenchmen, 
dead for long, thrown by the shells into hor- 
ribly fantastic groups; and sickening heads 
and limbs lying scattered alone. Bodies 
everywhere, mostly resting face up to the sky, 
eyes open, staring. In places they were 
stretched regularly in long straight lines; on 
other fields the corpses were dotted all about 
singly. " One had to jump over them every 
minute," said Georges. Further on, the 

[ 74 ] 



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French dead were mingled with Germans, 
piled sometimes four high like a football 
scrimmage. 

Then, in a sparsely wooded tract they 
passed the relics of a bayonet fight — fear- 
ful ! Apparently, the French African troops 
had chased a battalion of retreating Germans 
up against a wall, and the bodies were, well 
— the " Turcos " do not stab merely in the 
breast — they do not stab merely to kill — 
they stab anywhere, they stab joyfully, like 
demons. 

More and more German dead were 
passed, leaped over, even trod on where the 
way was narrow, and still the thundering of 
cannon came from every side. It seemed as 
if the whole world were fighting — as if all 
the old quiet ways of life had ceased to exist, 
even in memory. Still they pushed forward, 
marched to the west of Vitry-le-Francois, 
crossed the Marne on a pontoon bridge at 

[75] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



Blacy under a rain of rifle fire, and hurried 
through a beet field for a crest above the 
long, white, poplar-lined national road at 
Couvrol. 

The " Bosches " were in retreat! A 
motorcyclist, racing from Vitry to Chalons 
with dispatches, had stopped to yell out the 
news. 

As Georges struggled desperately up 
through the soft loam, his view was extended 
over the country about the Marne. Here, 
on those same wide rolling plains, Attila and 
all his Huns had fought his ancestors when 
France was but a nucleus of scattered Roman 
settlements; and here that horde had been de- 
feated and driven back to their wildernesses. 
Now, no matter in which direction he gazed, 
he could see the modern barbarians strewing 
destruction. Puffs of smoke were in the air 
everywhere, but thickest about Vitry-le-Fran- 
cois. 

[76] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



The shells from the French " 75's " burst 
beautifully with a cloud of jet black and 
white. The fleecy snowy-white puffs, gray 
red in the center, showed where the shrapnel 
sent its shower of leaden balls. But, oftener 
than all the rest, came the droning " mar- 
mites " of the German big guns, bursting with 
heavy thunder in a sudden reddish flash, 
changing into a spume of drab smoke, edged 
with white. 

To the westward, village after village was 
smoking. Machine guns were spitting, 
crackling along the roads, volleys of rifle 
fire snapped from every wood. Up and up 
went the Twentieth Regiment, till it came to 
the top of the little hill. 

Smack-bang in their faces, a salvo of bul- 
lets greeted the men. Another volley, an- 
other! Georges, staggering back, taken by 
surprise with the others, as men dropped all 
about him, caught sight on a low hillside be- 

[77] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



yond of a deep gray mass of men extended 
in battle front only a hundred meters away. 
There, waiting to hold back the advance, was 
at least a full regiment of infantry — one of 
those hundreds of little rear guards that were 
left absolutely unsupported, to cover the Ger- 
man retreat, and to fight to the death without 
hope of success. 

The Twentieth, rallying instantly, shouted 
a defiant answer to the German " Hurrahs," 
and sent its volley into the enemy. Beside 
Georges, a man named Charles Griffe, one of 
the few of his friends left from Toulouse, 
suddenly fell, clasping his hands over his head 
as he crumpled down. The sudden excite- 
ment seemed to hypnotize Georges. " The 
blood seemed to boil in my head," he ex- 
pressed it. He didn't hear the command to 
fix bayonets at all ; the first thing he knew he 
was running like a machine, yelling with the 
others, down into the ravine and up the other 

[78] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



side, and always with the horror of those 
points of gleaming steel ahead, climbing 
zig-zag up the slope toward — what? It 
seemed impossible to go against that row of 
sharp bayonets and live. 



XVIII 

So much Georges told me ; more he would 
not tell, at first, except that he thought the 
Germans stopped firing at about thirty 
meters distance, and began to sing the 
" Wacht am Rhein." 

Now I have always wanted to know the 
details of a typical bayonet fight — just how 
the issue is decided, why a Frenchman might 
not win here, and a German there, and so 
keep the victory uncertain. That, in fact, 
was one of the things I went to Toulouse to 
find out. But, to get any vivid picture of 
that bloody encounter was impossible. 

[79] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



Georges simply shook his head. " It was 
too horrible," he said. 

At last he confessed reluctantly that when 
he saw the men ahead of him bayoneting the 
Germans, jabbing like madmen, he too gave 
a jump, and shut his eyes and stabbed at 
something he had seen in front of him, ad- 
vancing with a long steel point — something 
that suddenly stopped singing, and squealed 
" like a wounded horse," he said. 

" I remember only that I pulled out my 
bayonet, and felt a jet of warm blood strike 
my face," Georges went on, when I forced 
him. " Then, I must have almost fainted, I 
think; I don't know what happened till I 
found myself wiping my face, and something 
was holding me. It was the bayonet of that 
German's that was caught in the wing of my 
overcoat, somehow — and he was lying on 
the ground with the blood still coming out of 
his stomach. There were lots of our men 
[80] • 



WAR THE CREATOR 



on the ground, but lots more of Germans. 
The rest of them were running; they were 
two hundred meters away by this time, and 
our men were after them, sticking them like 
pigs. . . . The sight of it made me sick. 
. . . When they came back, I was standing 
there, just leaning on my gun, swaying . . . 
and it was raining ... I didn't know it was 
raining at all till then . . . but the blood 
was almost entirely washed off my coat. . . . 
Isn't that enough, m'sieur? I can't bear to 
think about it." 

XIX 

When the Twentieth was gathered to- 
gether for roll call, it was found that there 
were 150 dead or wounded. Some 300 Ger- 
mans were stretched upon the ground. But 
the enemy must be pursued. So forward, 
with great precautions, to a farm, their head- 
quarters — but it was found to be empty ; so 

[81] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



here they halted for a rest, the young men 
still panting with the exertion and excitement 
of the fight. " I tried to smoke my pipe," 
said Georges, " but I had to give it up." 

With the artillery still hammering all 
about — but mostly the French batteries of 
" 75's " now, pounding away in fours — the 
Twentieth stayed till night, and sent its 
wounded to the rear — for the stretcher 
bearers and ambulances were right up behind 
these days, with plenty to do. Here the regi- 
ment received with yells and tears the news 
of the victory of this five days' battle of the 
Marne. It was too good to be true. 

The captain of Georges's company, with 
his arm in a sling, was a Frenchman, and now 
it was time for more rhetoric. He had an 
appreciative audience, this time. " You are 
men! " he announced, " you have done your 
duty, and France is proud of you." But 
France, it appeared from his talk, was not 

[82] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



yet free ; and the moral of his discourse was 
that there was still considerable work to do, 
and he ended with the word " Forward! " 

So, forward they went, next morning, 
gloriously in pursuit of the enemy, now 
some ten miles away. Forward, with their 
bayonets stained by German blood at last. 
Forward, all the forenoon, past villages 
wrecked and plundered by the barbarians; 
past houses gutted and outraged and burned; 
past trembling, fear-struck peasants offering 
what was left of their bread and wine. For- 
ward all the afternoon, along the roads 
strewn with helmets, knapsacks, and empty 
wine bottles ; past German camps in the open, 
littered with armchairs and clocks and silver 
plate, mattresses and broken pianos, and 
bottles, bottles, bottles — with sheep and 
cattle cut open, rotting; past dead horses 
everywhere, disemboweled, legs up. For- 
ward at sunset, past wrecked automobiles, 

[«3i 



WAR THE CREATOR 



burned to masses of curly iron; past caissons 
smashed by shells, and bicycles without num- 
ber abandoned along the road. Forward, in 
the moonlight across battle fields where the 
dead lay in windrows in shocking confusion, 
mutilated abominably, dead in the long fresh 
trenches, filling every gallery and compart- 
ment, dead in the woods, dead on green 
meadows where in the cool night air wisps 
of trailing mist hovered near the ground and 
the stench was in their nostrils till they sick- 
ened and hurried on, rinsing their mouths 
with water ! 

Forward across the swath, leagues wide, 
of death and hate and ruin, forward, for- 
ward all that night ! 



XX 

Three hours' rest, and then again for- 
ward! At noon, a farm. Halt! Georges 

[8 4 ] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



was one of the three who went forward, 
dodging from wall to wall, to reconnoiter. 
There seemed to be some secret hidden there 
— the roof was blown off, the windows 
smashed, devastation everywhere about — 
but it might still conceal some desperate foe. 
As he approached the closed door, he saw a 
stain on the stone step, where a little dark 
stream of something had dried. He pushed 
open the door — butchery ! More than two 
hundred Germans who had taken refuge 
there had found appalling death when two 
howitzer shells had converted them into an 
incredible mass of mere bleeding flesh. No 
fear now need any Frenchman have of those 
grim Germans — save only the fear of infec- 
tion. Georges flung back the door and fled. 

Could he find worse horrors? Let him 
tell. 

11 On Friday, after we had been relieved, 
we were held in reserve in the rear, and de- 

[85] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



tailed to pick up the German deserters and 
waifs that were hiding in the woods all over 
the country. They were a sorry enough lot, 
frightened to death at first, when they threw 
up their hands at sight of us, but glad enough 
to be made prisoners and not have to work, 
when they found they were not going to be 
killed. After the wanton destruction of in- 
nocent villages we had seen — they had even 
destroyed the fire engines — it was pretty 
hard to refrain from knocking these brutes 
down with the butts of our rifles. We 
heard many stories of the atrocities they had 
committed in their baffled rage, but the one 
thing I saw was enough for me. 

" We were marching through a little wood 
in the Department of the Marne — some- 
where between Posesse and Givry, it was, I 
think. The company ahead suddenly began 
to slow up and halt • — they were pointing at 
something, but the officers cried : ' Go on I 
[ 86 ]; 



WAR THE CREATOR 



Go on!' Of course we were curious to 
know what it was they were looking at, and 
we halted, too. Well, our officers couldn't 
hold us — or they didn't try to. Some of us 
ran up through the trees on the right-hand 
side of the road to look closer. 

" Eight French soldiers, m'sieur, with 
ropes round their necks, hanging to the limbs 
of the trees ! I was right close to them. I 
saw them plainly. I know. They were 
riddled with bullet holes. And in among 
them, m'sieur, was hanging the body of a lit- 
tle girl. About twelve years old, I should 
say. She was shot, too. She was so pretty. 
. . . The officers called us back. There was 
no time to cut them down, even; we were 
hurrying along to keep in touch with the ad- 
vance. 

" Yes, m'sieur, we all saw it. Why, there 
is a man in this very hospital now who saw it, 
too. Last week there came a commissioner 

[87] 



WAR* THE CREATOR 



down here on purpose to get our affidavit 
about it, for some report of the Govern- 
ment. " 

XXI 

Georges's story is almost told, now; there 
remains only the end of his soldiering, which 
was to be eventful to the last. After fol- 
lowing the fighting body for three days, the 
Twentieth Regiment was ordered into the 
first line. 

The Germans, having now retreated to 
the Aisne, and eastward to the strategic posi- 
tions long since prepared and mapped by Ger- 
man spies, had made a stand. So on to- 
ward Ville-sur-Tourbes Georges marched, 
the firing every moment getting hotter. 
They were evidently advancing against a very 
strong position, so that when they swung 
westward to the little village of Le Mesnil 
they began to be subjected to continuous shell- 
[88] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



ing and to rifle fire that grew worse and 
worse. But still no enemy was in sight. 

Again the Twentieth had to wait for the 
French artillery to* arrive in front of a black 
wood that poured out destruction. Lying in 
the brush, Georges wondered whether it 
would all end as before. As before, each 
man waited for his time to come; but now, 
seasoned, hopeful, he could joke at death. 

" There's a marmite for you ! " a cor- 
poral would sing out, as a German shell came 
screaming to the right; and, as the shrapnel 
exploded, " Look out for the prunes ! " a 
man would yell, " they're coming your 
way!" Georges was taking it all coolly 
enough, thinking, he told me, how much 
those hurtling shells sounded like a subway 
train rolling into a station — rather more like 
an express traveling past without stopping. 
And so, when a sergeant near him yelled, 
" Look out — here comes our portion! " he 

[89] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



only laughed and ducked under the little 
shelter of brush and earth he had been build- 
ing. 

XXII 

But Georges laughed too soon, he ducked 
just too late ! There was a terrific explo- 
sion, and suddenly he felt paralyzed all over 
— as if by an electric shock. No pain any- 
where at first; only a fearful feeling that 
something dire had happened to him. He 
was stunned; " sort of upside-down, all 
over," he said. Dragging himself out of the 
shower of dirt, dazed and frightened, he saw 
that his left foot was covered with blood. 
Then, a sudden leap of pain ! He had a sav- 
age burst of anger that he should have been 
so treated. The pain every moment grew 
more excruciating. ... 

Just how he got to the rear he didn't know, 
but after crawling and limping somehow, 

[90] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



with his rifle as a crutch, he found himself at 
last by the wall of a house outside the village, 
and there he lay down to rest. 

But there was to be little rest for Georges 
Cucurou. From that moment, for a whole 
week, he lived in a sort of waking night- 
mare. One foot bare, hopping along, hug- 
ging the walls of the village, savagely bom- 
barded by German batteries — lying under 
big trees, watching his retreating regiment 
leaving him to almost certain capture — limp- 
ing away on the arm of a stray wounded sol- 
dier in desperate haste before the " Bosches " 
came — that ride in a galloping ammunition 
wagon, bounced and jolted, bouncing into 
ditches, bumping over stones — and then, 
after a hurried first-aid dressing, that fearful 
journey to Ville-sur-Tourbes ! 

That journey — more than three miles ■. — -. 
Georges made along the hard macadam 
road, crawling on his hands and knees. He 

[91] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



had thrown away his knapsack, he had 
thrown away his rifle. " But," said 
Georges, " there was one thing I'd have died 
before I'd have thrown away — and that 
was that Prussian helmet ! " The last half 
mile he was carried on horseback, half faint- 
ing, behind a friendly chasseur. 

That was but an incident, however — the 
rest of his ordeal became a confused horror 
of days and days in a ruined farm, with a 
hundred others suffering like him, without 
any food, except unsugared tea, with their 
wounds undressed — at a farm where threat- 
ening German shells dropped intermittently, 
keeping up the constant fear of death. Then 
— after endless hours, torturing hours when 
he thought of nothing but his ankle and his 
stomach, the flying automobiles of the Red 
Cross! Georges was wafted to a semi- 
heaven of beds and bandages and women's 



WAR THE CREATOR 



kindly hands and faces — warm food — 
cleanliness ; rest — at Chalons ! 

Georges's soldiering was over — over, that 
is, if you except his trip to Toulouse. To 
some, perhaps, a three days' railway trip in 
a crowded compartment with a crushed ankle 
might be considered an ordeal. But to 
Georges it was a holiday. He was going 
home ! Home. 



XXIII 

At the beautiful Renaissance hospital at 
Toulouse on the Boulevard de Strasbourg, I 
found Georges Cucurou lying in the corner 
of a huge hall — a splendid hall it was of 
carvings and arches and coffer-vaulted ceil- 
ing, all hung with flags. 

How small his cot looked, there in the 
corner of that hall, amid paintings and gild- 

[93] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



ings and magnificent cornices ! How strange 
those nurses looked too — white-swathed 
matrons in flowing draperies, and nuns with 
flapping wide white headdresses gliding 
silently along the parqueted floor! How 
strange and quiet those weak, pale soldiers in 
the cots, and the patient soldiers sitting about 
in blue uniforms, and white, and red! But, 
most of all, how strange he seemed ! 

No, it was not Coco, any more — not Coco 
of the free, airy gestures, Coco of the big, 
innocent eyes ; but some one who was content 
to let his straight-forward words speak for 
themselves. Not the boy with mobile, 
parted lips ; but some one whose mouth closed 
firmly, now, when he paused, reflecting seri- 
ously before he answered. And, as he spoke 
of things beyond my ken, he made me, some- 
how, feel ashamed. Why, it seemed, now, 
that, having known Death so near, he knew 
Life itself — he was the wiser, the elder; 
[94] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



and I the boy, without experience save of the 
little arts and playthings of the world. . . . 

Well, it was time to go. I took out my 
notebook to jot down an address, and as I 
did so I saw his eyes fastened upon my pencil. 
His face had changed. 

Without a word, he reached out his hand 
for it. I understood — and there came up 
to me suddenly, a picture of the laughing boy 
who had pretended to shoot with such a 
pencil — and . . . even to give a bayonet 
thrust I 

I He looked at it curiously with a faint 
smile. " A-mer-i-cain Pencil Compagnie " 
he read with his queer French accent. Then 
he pressed in the end, and a little point of lead 
popped out. He laughed — he sighed. He 
handed it back. There were tears in his 
eyes. 

11 Ah, m'sieur," he said, " do you remem- 
ber that day in Paris, last July?" There 

[9J] 



WAR THE CREATOR 



was a silence. Then — " Why, it seems like 
ten years since then ! " 

So, in those two months, War the Creator 
had done its work. Coco was a man. 



[96] 



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